Again he went to the door. “Dal?” he spoke over his shoulder. “Better get movin’. I’ve got an uneasy feelin’.”
Happy Jack walked to the fire and tugged on his boots. “Coflee smells good. You checked the horses?”
“I’m going to saddle up now.” He donned his coat and took up the Spencer .52, slinging the Quick-Loader over his shoulder.
The limited supplies they had brought along on the spare horse from the Atherton place were nearly gone, so they split the remainder into four packs, and Jesse rigged a saddle from some blankets and straps.
The rain had eased somewhat, but the earth was soggy, and the trees dripped heavy drops into the muck below. Mac thrust his spare pistol behind his belt, eyes busy on the trees.
The situation worried him. He did not like remaining too long in one place, for fear of discovery. Their smoke was unlikely to be seen in the rain, yet there was the chance.
Mounting up, Mac led the way through the trees toward the south. Happy Jack closed up on him and riding abreast said, “We’ve got to watch ourselves. There’s a peninsula runs out into the bay somewhere along here, and if we get out on it we’re stuck.”
The rain ceased falling, and there was no sound in the woods but that of their horses’ hoofs. Mac tried to think ahead, to find an opening, a chance to rescue the girls without getting themselves killed. If anything happened to them, the girls would be condemned to a life of misery and cruelty.
Suppose Ashford swallowed the bait Kate had offered? Suppose he left his wagons and most of his men and rode south to Martin Connery’s ranch? He would certainly take Kate with him, but the others would be left behind. Yet could Ashford trust his men to leave the girls alone in his absence?
How many men would he take with him, leaving how many behind?
Happy Jack had fallen back, as it was strictly a single-file trail. Now he called in a low voice.
“Mac? The brush is thinnin’ out! Ride careful!”
Mac drew up, and when they stopped they listened. A faint yell came to them, then a whip-crack, almost like a pistol shot in the silence after the storm. Mac waited, watching and listening, not daring to move lest their movement be detected. Beyond the trees and brush, thin in places, could be seen the shadowy movements of the caravan wending its way across a wide open space leading to the beach.
Mac used his glass. Ashford was still with them, riding well out in front with four other men. These Mac studied, as one of them might well be the second in command, who must be dealt with.
“Jack? How far away is Connery’s place?”
“Ain’t more’n ten mile, I’d say. Maybe less. Right ahead of us there’s a bay, round as the moon. They call it one thing or another; mostly nowadays its called Mission Bay. Martin Connery’s place is just beyond. He keeps a schooner anchored in the bay in case he has to get away to sea again.” If that was true, then the chances were that Ashford would go into camp on the beach and wait for the ship he expected, and he might seize the chance to ride south and see Martin Connery.
“They’re stoppin’,” Jesse said. “I see the girls gettin’ out.”
Eleven
When the wagons stopped, Kate Connery peered out to see a wide white beach sloping very slightly toward the Gulf. She had only the vaguest idea of where she was and was totally unfamiliar with the area. Martin Connery lived somewhere to the south, how for she was not sure.
She had seen her uncle but once, when she was a small girl, and she remembered him only as a somewhat frightening but romantic figure of a man who gave orders like a cracking whip and tolerated no disobedience, or even hesitation.
He had about him an air of command, and he strode like he was walking his own quarterdeck.
The man named Butler came by and scratched on the canvas. “You can get out if you like,” he said. “Stretch your legs a mite. Looks like we might be here quite a spell.”
“Thank you.” Butler was a man of thirty-five, and there was about him a sense of one who had seen better times and who knew how to conduct himself. “When you make some coffee might we have some?”
“Certainly, ma’am, I shall see to it.”
He walked his horse away, and one by one they got down from the wagon. Across the neck of the bay on which they were, loomed another shore, perhaps two or three miles away. It was a low shore with a few scattered trees.
“Stay close to the wagon,” Kate advised.
“Can’t we go down to the water? I’d like to wash my hands,” Gretchen asked.
“Wait. Maybe they will let us, but the less attention we attract the better.”
“I wonder where the boys are?” Dulcie asked.
“Jesse got away, at least,” Kate said. “I think they were glad to be rid of him.”
“Do you suppose he will find them?”
“Of course.”
Yet she was not all that sure. How could he find them in all the wet forest? How far could he travel, weak as he was and without a horse?
For all she knew Jesse might be … out there in the forest now, dead or dying. He seemed to have gotten away, but how could they be sure? If one of these men killed him he might not even comment on it. They had already shown themselves to be very casual about killing, and she was beginning to believe that under his facade Ashford was as bad as the others. He considered himself a patriot and a gentleman, but what kind of a gentleman would kidnap young girls and plan to sell them into slavery? Yet as long as he wore the cloak of a gentleman he might behave like one, and without him they had nothing.
Butler? She did not know about Butler. Would he help? Was he too loyal to Ashford or to the Cause? Or would he take the risk of helping them escape?
Escape to where? Where could they go? They were miles and miles from home, and they were out on a flat white beach with only a tangle of forest and undergrowth behind the beach. There was no place to which they could run, nobody to ask for help.
Martin Connery? Her feeling was that Connery would have nothing but contempt for Ashford, but she wasn’t sure. Nor did she know how many men he had or whether he would try to help her.
Why should he? He had never seemed to care for his family, and certainly none of them cared for him. He was, to their thinking, a black sheep. He had strayed from the fold, and as far as the family was concerned he could stay there. Yet …
It was a forlorn hope but the only one she had. That and whatever the boys might do.
The sun was warm, and the glare off the sand caused them to squint. Two men sat out on the beach between them and the water, rifles across their knees. Some others had taken the horses and oxen and were leading them toward some grass at the edge of the trees. Several cooking fires had been started, and she could smell coffee.
Ashford was coming toward her. She got up, brushing off her dress, putting a strand of hair in place. He stopped before her, feet apart, staring. “You’re quite a woman, Kate, and you’ve got brains, too. We’d make a team, you and I.”
“I am not a soldier.”
He chuckled. “Of course not, but you have brains.”
The smile left his face. “This uncle of yours? He was a Southern sympathizer?”
“I am sure that was where his sympathies lay.” Then to offer something more to Ashford’s taste, she added, “He was, I believe, a blockade runner.”
“Ah?”
It was a wild card she was playing, a pitiful gamble against impossible odds. Martin Connery had never shown the slightest interest in any of his family, and there was no reason why he should now. By leading these renegades to him she might be endangering his life, but somehow, some way, she must save the girls from what lay before them.
What she was offering Ashford was the chance of an alliance, and if that failed, the prospect of loot. That he was considering both possibilities she was sure, and if she remembered her uncle correctly he was perfectly capable of handling Ashford.
What right had she to risk her uncle’s life to save herself and the others? Exactly none at all. But there was no alternative.
Ashford stared out over the bay, considering. She had, she believed, detected some uneasiness in him, perhaps about the expected ship. Was its arrival uncertain? Or did he not trust those with whom he would be dealing? At least, she had offered another possibility.